wamp wamp

One of Basil Marceaux’s Leading Opponents, Zach Wamp, Would Like To Secede Maybe

Congressman Zach Wamp is locked in a three-way battle for the Republican nomination for Tennessee governor (though it will ultimately go to a fourth candidate, Basil Marceaux), and so to give himself an edge he has resorted to the best talking point ever (after traffic-stop slavery emancipation), hinting that he maybe would like to secede from the Union. “I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government,” he said. It would be such a pain in the neck to go through that whole secession thing again! ANNOYYYYYYYYYYING. Just vote, you lazy bums.

“Patriots like Rick Perry have talked about these issues because the federal government is putting us in an untenable position at the state level,” he said.

Perry, the Texas governor who easily won a primary challenge earlier this year, saw his stock rise among conservatives after suggesting in 2009 that his state might consider secession.

You see, Wamp, don’t immediately let the interviewer know that you are trying to pander to your crazy base. You have to have conviction. You have to think, “Yes, I want the state of Tennessee to have its ass handed to itself again by the Union Army, but this time I want them to have nuclear weapons and deadly jets and computer missiles and such. And this is an idea I came up with by myself and not by just listening to what has worked for other Republican gubernatorial candidates in the South.”

Wamp, however, has now backtracked from these comments, showing the voters that not only does he want to pander, he also wants them to call him a “daggum pusseee” between spits of tobacco.

Tennessee, you need HURRY UP and decide if you want to secede or not. Why is it always this way with you? Are you IN or are you OUT? It is a simple question. Just pick a team! South Carolina has already seceded six times in the time it has taken to read this post. [CNN Political Ticker]

It is just a steady drip, drip , drip of the crazy and the stupid from that State. What an idiotic name, also. His parents must have despised him at birth.

Larry McAwful

If Tennessee and South Carolina secede and want to form their own country, they’ll need another state to join them, if they want to remain contiguous. That would require either North Carolina or Georgia. I recommend Georgia. Please take Georgia. Please.

Of course, if they want to remain independent from each other, they can just become their own backward shitholes by themselves. That’s cool.

Jack Stuef

Oh, also also Zach Wamp has a slight boner in that photo. And that kid is staring into Tennessee’s soul.

Even the most brilliantly glowing idea light bulb needs a power source to transmit its light.

trondant

[re=625521]Larry McAwful[/re]: No no no. Just give ’em the part of NC that hid Eric Rudolph.

Panquake

I’m still pissed millions died to keep those shitheads in the country in the first place.

Limeylizzie

[re=625522]Jack Stuef[/re]: Why did I click on that? I did not need to see Wamp’s slightly engorged member nestled in his pleated pants. Gentlemen of Wonkette, I have mentioned this before but it bears repeating, DO NOT EVER WEAR PANTS THAT HAVE PLEATS IN THE FRONT, they make your genitals look malformed and you look fat , also.

JMP

Let’s see, losing Tennessee would mean losing Nashville, which would mean no more country music; so yes, please secede and take that horrible achy-breaky crap off of our airwaves.

Lazy Media

Sometimes a silly name is not indicative of a silly person (see Evelyn Waugh). This is not one of those times.

Mr Blifil

What’s to stop towns seceding from states, and individuals seceding from municipality. What if my ass secedes from my body because it’s tired of being sometimes mistaken for my elbow?

Barrelhse

I’m just not fat enough for that crowd. Hope they all die from uninsured obesity-related illness.

oh hi mark

Wamp wamp
What it do, what it do

mbprice

[re=625528]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]: Easy. North California and South California. Problem solved.

trondant

aggressive, retarded weiner dog:dog door::Tennessee:Independence

AnglRdr

[re=625541]Barrelhse[/re]: Fuck you.

bureaucrap

Why was Basil Marceaux not asked for a response? Or does he not respond to questions unless they have to do with traffic stops?

slappypaddy

what is it about those confederated persons that they’re always wanting to run away? if you ask them, they’ll tell you how brave they are and how the confederacy never surrendered, but the whole inglorious mess wouldn’t have started if they hadn’t wanted to run away. and it’s not like they wanted to take their toys and go home, they were already home and the toys they wanted to take belonged to their landlord.

now here they are, a hundred-and-fifty years later*, and they’re doing it again. they hit a hard patch and instead of sticking to it and pulling through with all their neighbors, they’re wanting to take their toys (including the ones that belong to the landlord) and run away. look at that a certain way, it looks like cowardice, pure and simple (and i’m a texan, by the way, with roots going back into tennessee and the carolinas).

(*yes, history buffs, and all you johnny and janie rebs, a big series of anniversaries is coming up over the next five years, sure to generate some sort of business opportunities.)

JMP

That kid is going, “I used to bullseye Wamp Zacks in my T-16 back home, they’re not much bigger than two meters”.

Ducksworthy

While the clown show continues, the sponsors are having a ball. As yahoo news reports “the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate.”

Give em bread and circus clowns and they’re never notice.

SayItWithWookies

It is now the height of patriotism to threaten to secede — because the Federal government is imposing an oppressive burden on the states by — um — giving them money from the Recovery Act, making health insurance affordable and states’ rights, which issue was resolved sometime around 1865. But I’m all for it if it means we get to burn Atlanta again.

gbear

[re=625528]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]:

It’s been done. It’s the flag the US had after Alaska but before Hawaii.

[re=625521]Larry McAwful[/re]: “they can just become their own backward shitholes by themselves.”

As a resident of Georgia, I can assure Larry, mission accomplished.

Geogre

They need to pay the guvmunt back for that socialist TVA, then privatize it, like they want to, and break it into little pieces. Then they can split into an East and West half, which is the ethnic purity line.

You speak as if “Tennessee” were one state: it isn’t. You speak as if “Georgia” and “North Carolina” were single states. They are not. N vs. S. Georgia, E. vs. W. North Carolina — these are old divisions, and if we want good secessionists, then we need to split the splitters into smaller, pure units that can finally have FREEDOM.

“Who leads free men must himself be free”? “Who drives fat oxen must himself be fat.”

Ducksworthy

[re=625552]Ducksworthy[/re]: Actually, on second thought make that high fructose corn syrup and Faux News.

Mad Brahms

[re=625521]Larry McAwful[/re]: It’s tough, because NC has the Research Triangle and tons of stoner hippies, but Georgia has Atlanta (“the new South!”) and also Athens (where would hipsters get their music otherwise?).

Hope Tennesseans recognize that if it seceded, TN would lose its title as US state that borders on the most other US states, but would assume the title of foreign nation that borders on the most US states.

Lazy Media

[re=625521]Larry McAwful[/re]: You’d have to create a Free City of Atlanta for that to work (use I-285 as the border). And then you’d probably wind up with some kind of I-75 Corridor incident that would set off Civil War II.

Nappied Hypotenuse

[re=625521]Larry McAwful[/re]: I think it will require some West Berlin type solution, where The North retains soverignty over various and sundry college towns (Austin, Athens), crucial musical centers (New Orleans, Nashville), and the research triangle in North Carolina.

Also, [re=625551]JMP[/re]: The force is with you today.

Lazy Media

[re=625556]Geogre[/re]: Tennessee has three grand divisions (East, Middle and West), which are symbolized by the three stars on the state flag. So, more splitting! Yay!

Terry

“Yes, I want the state of Tennessee to have its ass handed to itself again by the Union Army, but this time I want them to have nuclear weapons and deadly jets and computer missiles and such. And this is an idea I came up with by myself and not by just listening to what has worked for other Republican gubernatorial candidates in the South.”

This is one of the best things I’ve ever read on Wonkette. You realize, however, that one day soon a nutcase teabagger elected to State office is going to get succession started. Hopefully, there will be adults in the room who can laugh at the person.

Why is the talk of seccession is always from folks who supposedly love this country sooooooo much more than the rest of us?

Oblios Cap

[re=625538]JMP[/re]:

Can’t we keep the Ocoee Rvier? The rapids are killer and we paid for all the TVA work in that area.

Aguacatero

[re=625560]Aguacatero[/re]: * Goes without saying, I am assuming that Canada would be joining US as part of this deal, to eliminate need for flag retrofits.

Lazy Media

I think we’re establishing here that the problem is not the South, it’s the suburbs and the ever-diminishing rural parts everywhere in America that are the problem.

norbizness

The Zach Wamp was a regional dance craze in Appalachia in the 60s and involved shocking yourself with a car battery.

SmutBoffin

I used to bull’s-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They’re not much bigger than two meters.

obfuscator

[re=625542]oh hi mark[/re]: i never thought i’d see a reference to the clipse here at my wonkette!

well done, jack.

SmutBoffin

[re=625551]JMP[/re]: Dammit. I’m not even a timely dork.

queeraselvis v 2.0

Secession? Feh. What Zach means by secession only applies to the white parts of Tennessee, meaning that he’d just as soon let the parts west of the Tennessee River be taken over by Mississippi.

Pandy

I like how these people blame others for “making” them have to seceed. Because it is not like they want to do it.

[re=625571]Lazy Media[/re]: True. The sourthern spirit spread with the force of white flight.

wilbro

He needs to get Tennessee out of the Union fast, while its gathered armies are still tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seriously, the window of opportunity is closing.

Of course, the Union wouldn’t have to invade. Just cut off the food supply till the South is surviving on pork rinds and Mountain Dew, and way too ADD to focus on a war.

snideinplainsight

See, the problem with secession, really, is that it’s so difficult to spell. We could just make it so much easier for them if we elected a more manageable verb to the cause; “git”, say.

“I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider gittin’ from this government,” he could say.

Golfing OJ

Uniquely American, isn’t it?

user-of-owls

Given the staggering absence of oral hygiene in the region, I am surprised we don’t see a lot more irredentists down there.

x111e7thst

[re=625553]SayItWithWookies[/re]: I like telling people in rebel flag tee shirts that my ancestor marched thru Georgia with Sherman. It’s not true but I do it anyway.

ManchuCandidate

Strange words to hear from the “love it or leave it” crowd, but the problem is there’s no where else they can go to remain “pure” to their “principals” (sic). Well there is. It’s Somali, but they also have a “No Black People” Rule.

Geogre

[re=625596]wilbro[/re]: Umm, no. The South remains heavily agricultural, and, for some strange reason that might go back to 1870, there are tons and tons and tons of US military bases in the South.

Georgia makes Plutonium (Savannah River), and Tennessee has Oak Ridge. Zach may like his chances, even without supply lines to China for clothing, metals, appliances, and internal combustion engines. He’ll nationalize the Honda plant and the old Saturn plant to make tanks. The CDC in Atlanta will open up the red room. GlaxxoSmithKlineBeachumWellcomeBurroughs in NC will cut off the North’s supply of Xanax.

Hey! Even I’m liking the South’s chances this time.

Winski

Zack Wamp… with a name like that, who could be doing anything BUT laughing.. maybe rolling around on the floor holding your stomach in pain from laughing so hard?? So maybe the Wamp-man could just get in his pick-up truck and drive his ass down to see Rick in Austin… And stay after the papers come back from Mexico City that are the finalized take back docs from Mexico… They are getting texas back..and with our blessing… See, that wasn’t that hard…

texas gets kicked out of the union and Wamp-o-rama gets to go too!! Everybody wins …

Aguacatero

[re=625603]user-of-owls[/re]: Ba-BOOM!

Geogre

[re=625606]x111e7thst[/re]: … and Bank of America would devise an extra ATM fee for northerners.

Yeah, I’m not so sure that the South isn’t the more powerful region now. Perhaps these stereotypes are a little, um, dated?

SayItWithWookies

[re=625606]x111e7thst[/re]: I once gave a friend of mine a William Tecumseh Sherman t-shirt for his birthday. We were both living in the capital of the Confederacy at the time — I don’t think that sissy ever wore it, either.

Geogre

[re=625609]ManchuCandidate[/re]: Their “liberty” and “principles” are relics of the militia movement, which was a relic of the Survivalist movement which started, or came to the fore, anyway, with Jimmy Carter.

They have always had the same solution: secession. I don’t mean that simply in the Zach Wamp Perry sense, either. They home school (secession!). They form communities in Idaho (secession). They get little groups together to build shelters and seed banks and the like, stocking up gold. A fervent wish that the rest of us go to Hell and a desperate belief that they alone are virtuous combine in their politics to want a heavily copulated “mission” community some place.

The white supremacists have been pushing this junk, but so have the doomsday cults and the gold bugs. They’re just recruiting again.

Neilist

George Thomas knew how to deal with these toothless in-breeds.

(That’s “The Rock of Chickamauga” to you Liberal Commie Pinko SCUM.)

Terry

[re=625610]Geogre[/re]:

On the other hand, since we can assume that the Union will blockade the Southern ports again that Wal-Mart will soon run out of cheap Chinese made merchandise. This will annoy a huge portion of the population of the South, especially when they find out that KMart is pretty empty, too. Ancharchy will result, the South will fall yet again.

Katydid

[re=625520]Limeylizzie[/re]: Oh, like “Joe Wamp” would have been much better?

Ducksworthy

[re=625571]Lazy Media[/re]: Very similar to the situation in Bosnia and Pakistan, also.

Katydid

[re=625522]Jack Stuef[/re]:

WAMP: Do you like gladiator movies, Joey?

Katydid

[re=625540]Mr Blifil[/re]: hahahahahahaha!

Geogre

[re=625634]Terry[/re]: The Wal*Mart factor is important.

I’m not sure how that can be overcome, but I think the Union’s freak outs over stoppage of anti-depressants and tranqs will hit before the stockpiles in the Bill’s Dollar Stores, K-Marts, and Dollar Trees are all gone. There might be hyperinflation, but the South is used to it.

AnglRdr

[re=625603]user-of-owls[/re]: It’s the southern US. It’s not England.

Dashboard_Buddha

[re=625540]Mr Blifil[/re]: Brilliant

BlueStateLiberal

Yeah, go ahead and try to secede, that worked out so well for you last time.

Limeylizzie

[re=625649]Katydid[/re]: You have a point there.

Hoplight

Given how much the republicans loathe democracy, we should definitely rush out and elect them to defend it.

[re=625563]Nappied Hypotenuse[/re]: An airlift of fancy, yeah, but I like this idea. You’d also get the sane suburban/exurban as refugees (they work here anyway.) And industrial espionage could be countered simply by counting teeth at the border crossings.

Jim89048

[re=625568]Aguacatero[/re]: So we replace the stars on the flag with maple leaves? Because I’m OK with that.

sezme

Kentuckians are hoping that Tennessee does secede because it will cut down on the drive to Alabama.

Aguacatero

[re=625767]Jim89048[/re]: Maple leaves are so pre-climate change. But I suppose it will still have a kind of atavistic charm, sort of like our use of the (extinct from California, due to Californians) California Golden Bear as our mascot and great source of pride. So yeah, why not?

[re=625615]Geogre[/re]: Southerners (and by that I mean the Zach Wamp Southerners, not the rest of us godless masses stuck south of the Mason-Dixon Line) are pretty much just LARPers who use this skewed version of history as their guidebook. Thus, they are not fatty morans working for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. They are heroes standing up for America against the evil legions of liberal Orks.

And, like LARPers, if ever forced to really fight instead of simply have imaginary battles in their heads they would all fail.

If Civil War 2.0 does happen I only hope that my home of Florida would play the same part it did last time- mostly ignored because it’s too damn hot to think about fighting. While there are parts of North Florida that are Southern the rest of the state is an important strategic holding place for the eccentric kooks who were run out of the other states.

Geogre

[re=625844]MissyLissa[/re]: The “Southerners” you refer to are generally not Southern in origin. Like the racist bigot in Arizona, they often are tax haters and freaks flowing in from other regions.

The old line Southern secessionists still exist. There are “neo-Confederate” groups. They’re quite small, quite weird. Most southerners are no more of that party than they are inclined toward the upper-midwest inflected tax hatred. Niel Boorst, for example, is from “Atlanta.” Oh? Hear that thick northern drawl on him? Newt Gingrich’s rise was a Lockheed affair, and his district became a massive inrush of military contractors.

The agricultural parts of the south are put down, put upon, xenophobic, less racist (but still plenty racist), and uninformed, but they mistrust the far away places… like their state capitols. For them, “Washington politician” and “Capitol City politician” mean about the same, so they’re not secessionists as much as they are aware that, when anything happens, they’re going to get smart or get screwed.

Decker

Hunt the Wampuss

ennui go

[re=625551]JMP[/re]: You, sir, have won the afternoon. Bravo!

lochnessmonster

Okay, these people don’t want road and bridge funding, Title Grant Funds for schools, etc? I’d like to see the fist fight when the Senators and Representatives find out their services are no longer needed, told to pack up their offices in DC and they can move back to Texas, or Kentucky or wherever they come from if their states want to suceed from the union. No Title Funds…they’ll have the teacher unions all over them. I say let them suceed…Illinois could use the money they turn down from all the project money the Federal Gov. funds.

just pixels

They (tea partiers, republicans) complain Obama isn’t following the Constitution. I guess they think the federal government has overstepped the Tenth Amendment — unassigned powers remain with the States. In their opinion. (In my opinion, the second amendment is about militias not guns, but I don’t really call the “shots” on that (rimshot! — double rimshot!!)).

If only there was some branch of our government to decide what is constitutional and what isn’t. And if that branch was populated by non-activist conservative ideologues. In that fantasy world, the TP’ers would not have to secede from the United States in order to avoid unconstitutional Federal laws.

Otherwise, attention Mr Wamp and Mr Perry and the other America-haters out there. We have a democracy. Elections matter. The best politics is good governing. See you in the reality zone.

slowhansolo

“It’s not impossible. I used to bullseye Wamp rats in my T-16 back home, they’re not much bigger than two meters.”

gwfb2012

If Tennessee secedes from the Union, can Davidson County secede from Tennessee?

God, I hope so…

Joshua

Under Texas v. White et al (1869), a state can not unilaterally secede from the United States. Therefore, Tennessee must have consent to secede, which that will never happen.

kadooz

[re=625596]wilbro[/re]: “Just cut off the food supply till the South is surviving on pork rinds and Mountain Dew”

You say this as if it’s not true already.

kadooz

[re=627817]kadooz[/re]: And I had to suffer through childhood in rural east Tennessee, so I’m-a make fun of it whenever opportunities present.